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School fires in Rarotonga

School fires in Rarotonga

With so many of our paddlers heading to Rarotonga in November for Vaka Eiva. We thought some of you may like to help out in some way with the 2 schools that have been effected. Please read the attached message from the event organisors of Vaka Eiva.

Kia Orana All,
During the early hours of Monday morning, Nukutere College had a terrible fire which destroyed six of their classrooms. Later in the afternoon, Avatea Primary School also had a devastating fire which destroyed six of their classrooms as well as their library. This is extremely upsetting for everyone here in Rarotonga and the schools, parents and Ministry of Education are doing everything that they can to ensure that there is as little disruption for the children as possible, particularly the Nukutere senior students who are taking their exams next month.

All of our schools in Rarotonga and Aitutaki have already been adopted as part of our “Adopt a School” programme, but we humbly ask that if you have not yet adopted a school, that you could possibly look at supporting Avatea and Nukutere. The Ministry of Education is waiting to hear back from both schools as to what they will be requiring and then they will send a list to me which in turn I will send to you. As you are all aware, this programme is (and always has been) completely voluntary and you are under no obligation to be part of the programme, but at times like this any support would be truly appreciated.

It is likely that a lot of the resources will be quite specialised, but I’m sure we can work something out – in particular helping Avatea who lost their library and every book in it.

We are also looking at other ways we can support the schools during Vaka Eiva, with our Charity Boiler Swim as well as a couple of other ideas and I will keep you posted on those.

I was going to put this onto our facebook page, but Harvie has just put up a library of stunning photos of Rarotonga ‘off the water – non paddling shots” so I thought I would leave those on for everyone and not put the devastating photos of our two schools the day after the terrible fires.

For those crews who adopted Nukutere and Avaea, I am sure they will be extremely grateful that you are supporting them and I very much hope that we may be able to get a few other crews to join you.

Please note that neither the schools concerned or the Ministry of Education has asked me to send this email, but this is something that I wanted to share with you as you have all been so incredibly supportive over the last two years since we launched this programme and we can consider this to be an extension of the programme.

I will be in touch with more details when I get them.

Meitaki maata e kia manuia
Victoria


Victoria Dearlove
Event Coordinator
Vaka Eiva 2013
The Tenth Event
22nd to 29th November 2013